What's the dumbest move your organization has made?

Some of you might know I work for a real estate firm that's for obvious reasons been having financial difficulty and has made cutbacks in labor and other spending. Even prior to that I've been fighting against the grain to get better security implemented because when I came aboard it was kind of every man for himself in a way where each PC was basically managed by the end user and the IT staff was there to help as problems developed. Thankfully after a couple years of effort things had began to take shape fairly well especially as of the past 6 months or so.

The basic background here is our organization owns all of our servers as well as 2 to 4 "workroom" computers for agents that do not have their own computer to use. The rest and majority of our nodes we support are agent owned. Our anti-virus/anti-spyware software licensing (TrendMicro) had been nearing expiration so I submit a request for approval on the renewal of all of our seats (we supply it for agent owned computers as well). My organization denied it, they would not be purchasing it at this time. Instead they would opt to let it expire for a couple of months and then make the purchase. After describing what a bad move that would be, we finally were able to agree to at least purchase licensing for our corporate owned hardware. They would still be purchasing the remaining licenses but in a couple months. At least I have financial info I am presenting next week showing how the split renewal would effectively cost us about $8000 more as our initial purchase (for company owned machines) would be much more expensive since it would fall a couple tiers lower in the pricing scheme. This info will either work in my favor (and they buy it all up front) or against me (and they say we'll just wait and buy it all in two months).

Certainly not looking forward either way to the next couple of months as we deal with virus/spyware infections on a higher frequency as well as the helpdesk being bombarded with calls "uhh yea my TrendMicro is saying it's expired". I've seen a lot of dumb decisions handed down from above here before... but this is one of the worst.

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undomiel

Dumbest move my previous organization made was letting me go.

dynamik

undomiel wrote: »

Dumbest move my previous organization made was letting me go.

Funny, I'd say just the opposite about mine

HeroPsycho

Where I'm contracting right now? Without a doubt, choosing EMC emailXtender as their email archiving software over Enterprise Vault because EMC gave them such a "great deal". I had very low expectations for it, but it managed to sink lower than that somehow.

msteinhilber

Oh, I'd like to add a runner-up to my OP, as well as a partial reason as to why they don't have the money now.

Spending 300k+ on a software package for your website that you can already do with the other package you own. And the executives believing every spoonful of B.S. this company feeds them about severe issues there have been months after it's launch (our exec's are now convinced and ok with "this kind of stuff will never work perfect, and it takes a long time to reach nearly perfect").

This same company is arguing with me that there is nothing that could possibly be done to help alleviate referrer spam tarnishing the statistics that our agents view (to see who is viewing their listings online). I could very easily write a quick script to eliminate those entries from the statistics as they show up hundreds of times and very obvious that's it's just referrer spam.

Slowhand

The dumbest move any of my employers have made has to be what my last company did. I worked for an outsourcing company that handled IT for small and medium-sized businesses, usually something along the lines of an SBS box and 15 - 50 users per client. We ran BackupExec, and online backup solution called Asigra, and did imaging with Acronis to a local Buffalo NAS device. Nothing really fancy, we even had a helpdesk to answer phones for customer-issues that weren't network-wide, and we had a project team that would handle major changes or new installs. The sysadmin responsibilities involved keeping the network running day-today, dealing with server issues, going onsite to check up on things, deal with issues that had been escalated from the helpdesk, and do routine checks on the backups, the documentation, etc.

They hired me for what was, in essence, jr. admin salary, and loaded me up with 13 clients, five of which I had to get up and running from scratch, myself. Basically, in a day, I could be dealing with anywhere from five to ten different customers, all from different networks. Some days I'd drive from Berkeley to Sacramento, then down to San Jose, and back to Berkeley again, all to do onsite visits, (which had to be done monthly if I didn't need to go anyway). No amount of work I did for any one client could exceed two hours per day, or I'd get dinged during my review and lose a chunk of my bonus. No issues could slip through the cracks, even if they didn't qualify for the project teams time, and my boss would drag all the sysadmins into a meeting every morning to basically bark at us about working harder, about how he never used to be as lazy as we were when he was a tech, (his own words,) and that we were really only running at about 60% capacity so we should expect to take on more clients. We were even told that, "eight hours a day is a good start," when the usual 60-hour workweek became the norm and they began pushing us harder.

Some of more the spectacular bonehead-moves:

I was written up for "coming in late and leaving early, then calling in sick for the rest of the week". The situation, I'd been in a car accident on that Tuesday, went to the emergency room after checking in with work, then was told by the doctor to stay home for the rest of the week.

After forgetting to take care of something on a Wednesday night that needed to be done before Friday, my boss has me stand up in front of the other sysadmins during our morning meeting and explain why I didn't finish the task. I told him that I completely forgot about it the night before and went home, but that I'd be taking care of it that day since it wasn't due until Friday. His response, "Did you sleep last night? If you had time to sleep, you had time to do your work."

And the last thing I'll mention, (I could go on for hours,) is the best of all. I lost nearly a thousand dollars in bonus money while I was there because I wasn't taking enough certification exams every quarter. If I didn't take at least one, I lost money, (on top of losing money for some very questionable things, like "not being motivated to learn" right after I took my CCNA and sat down to learn Kixtart scripting on my own time,) and there were several review-periods where I was so bogged down with my bakers-dozen clients that I didn't have time to study. I was told that I needed to study on my own time, with my own training material, and that if I didn't they'd continue to dock my bonus. We're talking about $200 - $300 every three months, right down the drain, because I wasn't taking "an exam" every quarter, but they didn't care which exam I took nor if I was dumping it or actually learning. (Guess what most of my co-workers did to save their hides from being chewed out and preserving their bonuses.) Oh, yes, we were yelled at quite regularly for not getting more certs, docking money wasn't enough.

cisco_trooper

Someone should burn that place down.

Disclaimer: This is just an opinion.

Slowhand wrote: »

The dumbest move any of my employers have made has to be what my last company did. I worked for an outsourcing company that handled IT for small and medium-sized businesses, usually something along the lines of an SBS box and 15 - 50 users per client. We ran BackupExec, and online backup solution called Asigra, and did imaging with Acronis to a local Buffalo NAS device. Nothing really fancy, we even had a helpdesk to answer phones for customer-issues that weren't network-wide, and we had a project team that would handle major changes or new installs. The sysadmin responsibilities involved keeping the network running day-today, dealing with server issues, going onsite to check up on things, deal with issues that had been escalated from the helpdesk, and do routine checks on the backups, the documentation, etc.

They hired me for what was, in essence, jr. admin salary, and loaded me up with 13 clients, five of which I had to get up and running from scratch, myself. Basically, in a day, I could be dealing with anywhere from five to ten different customers, all from different networks. Some days I'd drive from Berkeley to Sacramento, then down to San Jose, and back to Berkeley again, all to do onsite visits, (which had to be done monthly if I didn't need to go anyway). No amount of work I did for any one client could exceed two hours per day, or I'd get dinged during my review and lose a chunk of my bonus. No issues could slip through the cracks, even if they didn't qualify for the project teams time, and my boss would drag all the sysadmins into a meeting every morning to basically bark at us about working harder, about how he never used to be as lazy as we were when he was a tech, (his own words,) and that we were really only running at about 60% capacity so we should expect to take on more clients. We were even told that, "eight hours a day is a good start," when the usual 60-hour workweek became the norm and they began pushing us harder.

Some of more the spectacular bonehead-moves:

I was written up for "coming in late and leaving early, then calling in sick for the rest of the week". The situation, I'd been in a car accident on that Tuesday, went to the emergency room after checking in with work, then was told by the doctor to stay home for the rest of the week.

After forgetting to take care of something on a Wednesday night that needed to be done before Friday, my boss has me stand up in front of the other sysadmins during our morning meeting and explain why I didn't finish the task. I told him that I completely forgot about it the night before and went home, but that I'd be taking care of it that day since it wasn't due until Friday. His response, "Did you sleep last night? If you had time to sleep, you had time to do your work."

And the last thing I'll mention, (I could go on for hours,) is the best of all. I lost nearly a thousand dollars in bonus money while I was there because I wasn't taking enough certification exams every quarter. If I didn't take at least one, I lost money, (on top of losing money for some very questionable things, like "not being motivated to learn" right after I took my CCNA and sat down to learn Kixtart scripting on my own time,) and there were several review-periods where I was so bogged down with my bakers-dozen clients that I didn't have time to study. I was told that I needed to study on my own time, with my own training material, and that if I didn't they'd continue to dock my bonus. We're talking about $200 - $300 every three months, right down the drain, because I wasn't taking "an exam" every quarter, but they didn't care which exam I took nor if I was dumping it or actually learning. (Guess what most of my co-workers did to save their hides from being chewed out and preserving their bonuses.) Oh, yes, we were yelled at quite regularly for not getting more certs, docking money wasn't enough.

qwertyiop

cisco_trooper wrote: »

Someone should burn that place down.

Disclaimer: This is just an opinion.

I agree with you, that place must have sucked

jibbajabba

undomiel wrote: »

Dumbest move my previous organization made was letting me go.

Hehe - they only know what they are missing once you are gone

sprkymrk

@ msteinhilber:

Maybe you could contact the AV company's licensing department, explain the financial situation, and ask them to give you a 60 day grace period on the software? You've got nothing to lose by trying, and you become a hero if it works. Place yourself in the shoes of TrendMicro sales department. What would it mean to them to lose your business, if perhaps, your company must resort to using a free AV application like ClamWin? You could hint (not threaten) that if you can't get a 60-90 day grace period, you will have to use something else in the meanwhile, and you are afraid your CEO will end up "happy" with a free solution and not renew the TrendMicro license even when funding becomes available.

@ Slowhand:

Yikes! What company was that?

msteinhilber

Wow... my examples have absolute nothing on Slowhands...

That's just insane, hopefully you didn't have to endure that for too long before moving on to greener pastures.

HeroPsycho

cisco_trooper wrote: »

Someone should burn that place down.

Disclaimer: This is just an opinion.

You can only do that if they take your red Swingline stapler...

qwertyiop

Maybe its just me but my boss decided to let some of our users remote into our Primary Domain Controller in order to use a program that he has installed on it. I've warned him many times about giving them access to our DC and the possible security risks that this may cause but he wont budge from that.

blargoe

I could set the building on fire...

qwertyiop

blargoe wrote: »

I could set the building on fire...

LOL, I dont know what else I can do about this. I've talked to him, sent him links and have showed him documentation talking about how that is a bad idea and he wont budge and theres not much I can do since I report to him.

Slowhand

msteinhilber wrote: »

Wow... my examples have absolute nothing on Slowhands...

That's just insane, hopefully you didn't have to endure that for too long before moving on to greener pastures.

A little under a year, unfortunately.

sprkymrk wrote: »

Yikes! What company was that?

Oh, I don't know if I should openly call them out on the forum. They're listed on my LinkedIn profile. They're not the company I work for now and they're not the independant contract gig, Nacio or CompUSA. It's also the only position I've ever held with the title 'systems administrator'.

HeroPsycho

I LOL'ed literally at your job title on your page.

"Systems Engineer at Mind Control Software" is just tooooooo good!

Slowhand

HeroPsycho wrote: »

I LOL'ed literally at your job title on your page.

"Systems Engineer at Mind Control Software" is just tooooooo good!

Just wait. I'm going to the RSA security conference next week, and I can't wait to go up to the NSA booth wearing my job title and company name on the badge around my neck. Believe me, I'll just grin and say "hi", then wait for their reactions.

Pash

We do I start?

The real shiner must be:

Trying to globalize the company to float on the stock exchange - this is at the expense of having enough staff to meet the workload, lack of training, lack of paid holiday, lack of so much I can't list it all.

Bacially im just going through everyday....searching for another job

Angie1313

undomiel wrote: »

Dumbest move my previous organization made was letting me go.

I was going to say letting my one friend go but then I just had a conversation with my boss. Keeping him is easily the dumbest move.

TravR1

My sympathies to all of you.

My company seems to have it together. Even in this market we are growing/expanding

arwes

Been here almost two years, and so far I'd have to say it's a toss up between the server room cooling and the Office 07 upgrade. When I started here I advised during the planning of the server room that they use a standalone cooling system (like from Liebert) due to the occasional problems with the Trane chiller system the building has. They decided it would be cheaper to just get a Trane air handler unit installed in there. They didn't find out till afterward that the chillers shut down from 9:00 PM till 1:00 AM. They wouldn't have known if I didn't have a APC Environment Manager installed in there. We noticed that the server room was getting up to 90+ degrees in that time frame, and there's nothing they can do about the chiller shutdown. So they spent another couple grand on a APC rack air removal system to at least keep air moving. My former employer had a Liebert for sale (cheap too) since they consolidated all their equipment into one location, but my boss wasn't interested. Oh well!

I've tried to explain to my boss the benefits of volume licensing versus buying the same stuff over and over again with OEM equipment. Now my understanding is that OEM licenses are tied to the equipment, not to the purchaser but I may be wrong. Volume licenses however, are transferable within the company. We have several workstations that are either on Office XP (2002) or Office 2003 and our insurance software causes constant problems with normal.dot (the problem is nonexistent with Office 2007). My boss gave the board members a rough estimate of what it would cost ($250 per user) and that's what he got. We ended up ordering around 100 or so retail Office 2007 upgrades from Newegg. I've tested the upgrades on four users, and when they open certain Excel spreadsheets it looks like there's nothing there, until they restore the window down and it shows up. Works just fine on any other computer. Ugh. We're probably going to be due for a hardware refresh late this year or early next year, so hopefully I can convince him eventually.